Lauren Schmelz

Artist Statement

I am Lauren Schmelz, an artist exploring my craft in Louisville, Kentucky. I find beauty in the discarded and the forgotten. When I’m not creating, you can find me collecting supplies for my next series. There’s always a new project on the horizon, a sketchbook in tow to document thoughts and feelings, and an eye on what the neighbors have thrown out to the curb.

Color and texture create tactile surfaces for me to explore in my work and through that exploration I become more vulnerable with myself; finding place and purpose for the losses I’ve experienced. It’s the rawness of grief and learning to be present in light of loss that gives life to my work.

My process involves play, often experimenting with the atmosphere of a work, blindly finding the contour of a subject, or drawing until things fall into place. For me, a box of discarded photos is treasure, waiting to be given a new life; old fabrics are cut up and repurposed to adorn new works; dried plants collected from last season are processed and printed onto linens.

My work is often figurative, using the human form to further explore personal experience, place, and purpose. It’s through this lens that I consider a multitude of themes including family, identity, absence, loss, and what it means to be female.